Reality Imitating Art?
Posted on 10/10/2004 12:15:34 AM PDT by Stoat
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Reality Imitating Art?
Where?
Please don't post pictures of that old wench while I am thinking of breakfast.
"I'm missing something here again. Are the Democrats now trying to say that the Dred Scott decision was correct?"
I think so. It was really weird. I was channel surfing after the debate and landed on PMSNBC where Ron Jr was asking a Kerry supporting UW student what she though was Bushes weakest moment. And she said something like "when he was talking about picking judges. He totally showed he did not understand the Dred Scott case."
I must admit I thought it was odd to bring up a 130+ year old case as an example of bad judicial decisions when there are so many contemporary ones, but you could tell after the debate that this illustration did make the Dems bite randomly like cornered rats. I think its because they know that DS was decided by one of their own...a Constitutional relativist.
[Restorer #1] Mr. Bush: "I wouldn't pick a judge who said that the Pledge of Allegiance couldn't be said in a school because it had the words under God in it. I think that's an example of a judge allowing personal opinion to enter into the decision-making process as opposed to a strict interpretation of the Constitution. "Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights. That's a personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution says."
George W. Bush, debate, October 9, 2004, St. Louis, Missouri, from transcript:
GIBSON: Mr. President, the next question is for you, and it comes from Jonathan Michaelson, over here.
MICHAELSON: Mr. President, if there were a vacancy in the Supreme Court and you had the opportunity to fill that position today, who would you choose and why?
BUSH: I'm not telling.
(LAUGHTER)
I really don't have -- haven't picked anybody yet. Plus, I want them all voting for me.
(LAUGHTER)
I would pick somebody who would not allow their personal opinion to get in the way of the law. I would pick somebody who would strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States.
Let me give you a couple of examples, I guess, of the kind of person I wouldn't pick.
I wouldn't pick a judge who said that the Pledge of Allegiance couldn't be said in a school because it had the words under God in it. I think that's an example of a judge allowing personal opinion to enter into the decision-making process as opposed to a strict interpretation of the Constitution.
Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights.
That's a personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we're all -- you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America.
And so, I would pick people that would be strict constructionists. We've got plenty of lawmakers in Washington, D.C. Legislators make law; judges interpret the Constitution.
And I suspect one of us will have a pick at the end of next year -- the next four years. And that's the kind of judge I'm going to put on there. No litmus test except for how they interpret the Constitution.
Thank you.
THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION ON SLAVERY
Article 1, Section 2. Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.Article 1, Section. 9, Clause 1. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3. No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Article 5. ... Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
[Restorer #2] Are the Democrats now trying to say that the Dred Scott decision was correct?
The decision was 7-2 for a reason. The Constitution left slavery up to the states. At the time of the Dred Scott decision and the Civil War, every state had the legal right to authorize slavery within its jurisdiction. Slavery was recognized and protected by the Constitution. At the time of ratification by -all- the states, 12 of the 13 original states were slave states. It was wrong. It was immoral. But it was certainly legal and Constitutional.
I see no legal argument presented.
It should be noted that the whole Dred Scott case was a sham. Scott was never owned by John Sanford. Scott was owned by John Emerson at the time of Emerson's death and property rights went to the widow Emerson, Mrs. Emerson, nee Sanford. When she married Calvin Chaffee, Mr. Chaffee obtained property rights in Dred Scott and his family. Mr. And Mrs. Chaffee were the true owners. That would be Congressman Chaffee of Massachusetts and his wife.
The two sides colluded in the case. It was manufactured for the Supreme Court. In Missouri, the two sides entered into an agreed set of facts whereby it was established that Mr. Emerson had sold Dred Scott to Mr. John Sanford, brother of Mrs. Emerson. This was purportedly done at a time when Mr. Emerson was, most assuredly, a corpse.
In the reporting of the case, the name is given incorrectly as Sandford, with an extra d. And so it lives as Scott v. Sandford.
John F.A. Sandford was from New York. Although he was beyond the jurisdiction of the Missouri court, he traveled to St. Louis so he could be served.
Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was invoked on the basis of diversity of state citizenship, John Sanford being a citizen of New York, and Dred Scott claiming to be a citizen of Missouri. It was absolutely essential for Dred Scott to show that he was a citizen of Missouri in order to establish the claimed jurisdiction. Upon failure of the claimed jurisdiction, the court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case.
The highest court of Missouri determined that as a matter of Missouri law, Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri.
The U.S. Supreme Court cannot overrule the highest court of any state when said court is interpreting State law.
The actual holding of the Supreme Court, 7-2, was:
Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
Precedent was set in the case of The Slave, Grace (1827). This was a case in the English High Court of Admiralty. Grace was a West Indian slave who traveled to England and returned to Antigua with her master. After returning to Antigua, she sued for her freedom. Lord Stowell found that residence in England only suspended her slave status. Had she sued for freedom in England, the law of England would have applied, and she would have gone free. But as she was in Antigua, the law of Antigua applied (territorial jurisdiction) and her status was determined by the law of the slave jurisdiction where she was at.
That is a British case after Britain had abolished slavery.
It should be noted that the famous dissent in the Scott case was written by Justice Benjamin R. Curtis. It should be further noted that the case was argued for Scott, in part, by an attorney named George T. Curtis. Benjamin sat on the bench while his brother George argued the case.
The original Opinion of the Court was written and completed by Justice Nelson of New York and was based on the purely technical ground of jurisdiction. Justice Nelson's opinion was filed as a concurring opinion, but the phrasing leaves no doubt that it originally spoke for the Court. Justice Curtis insisted on issuing a dissent on all possible issues. Therefore, the other justices reassigned the writing of the Opinion of the Court in response to the intentions of Curtis to open up other issues. The Taney opinion is largely a response to issues raised by Curtis.
Curtis issued his opinion to newspapers before the case was officially published. Subsequently Curtis was ostracized by the other justices and resigned from the court within a few months. In 1862, Curtis wrote a scathing condemnation of Lincoln entitled "Executive Power."
As part of the Agreed Statement of Facts (sic) manufactured by the parties in Missouri, the following was established:
In the year 1838, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff and
said Harriet and their said daughter Eliza, from said Fort
Snelling to the State of Missouri, where they have ever since
resided.Before the commencement of this suit, said Dr. Emerson sold and
conveyed the plaintiff, said Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, to the
defendant, as slaves, and the defendant has ever since claimed to
hold them and each of them as slaves.
Emerson died in 1843. Scott v. Emerson was decided in 1852. Scott v. Sandford did not get going until 1854. Emerson had been a corpse for eleven (11) years. This legal fraud notwithstanding, Dred Scott belonged to Massachusetts Congressman Calvin Chaffee and his wife, the former Mrs. Emerson, sister of John Sanford. Within a few months of the Dred Scott decision, John Sanford died in the insane asylum where he was then resident. Dred Scott was freed by Taylor Blow, (son of the owner before Mr. Emerson), who, immediately following the decision had obtained Scott from the Chaffees.
[Matsugi Article] Lincoln, however, rejected Taney’s bad history and regarded the Declaration’s equality principle as a “standard maxim of free society.”
Black historians read the words that came directly from Lincoln's mouth and recognize this "equality principle" pantsload as a myth. While you may read 15,000 books turning Lincoln into a saint, try finding one written by a Black historian. Lincoln was clearly a racist and a white supremecist. We speak of the Lincoln who said, in his words, before thousands of witnesses in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, September 18, 1858: "I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." It is the Lincoln who called Mexicans "mongrels." That was the "standard maxim" of Lincoln, direct from Lincoln's mouth. When I quote the actual words that flowed from the mouth of Abraham Lincoln, Capitan call it "hate speech." It is only that he hates the truth.
| Speech at Carlinville, Illinois, August 31, 1858 |
He [Lincoln] said the question is often asked, why this fuss about niggers?
| Speech at Elwood, Kansas, December 1 [November 30?], 1859 |
People often ask, ``why make such a fuss about a few niggers?''
|CW 2:396, Springfield, May 25, 1857. |
There is no longer any difficult question of jurisdiction in the Federal courts; they have jurisdiction in all possible cases, except such as might redound to the benefit of a "nigger'' in some way.
| First Debate with Stephen Douglas, Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858 |
[CW 3:20] When my friend, Judge Douglas, came to Chicago, on the 9th of July, this speech having been delivered on the 16th of June, he made an harangue there, in which he took hold of this speech of mine, showing that he had carefully read it; and while he paid no attention to this matter at all, but complimented me as being a "kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman,'' notwithstanding I had said this; he goes on and eliminates, or draws out, from my speech this tendency of mine to set the States at war with one another, to make all the institutions uniform, and set the niggers and white people to marrying together.
[CW 3:27] There is no danger that the people of Kentucky will shoulder their muskets and with a young nigger stuck on every bayonet march into Illinois and force them upon us.
| Third Lincoln-Douglas debate,Jonesboro, Illinois, September 15, 1858 |
We have seen many a "nigger'' that we thought more of than some white men.
| Speech at Springfield, Illinois June 10, 1856 |
He would occasionally launch out and lead his hearers to think that the most ultra abolitionism would follow, when, under the old whig eyes we have mentioned, he would soften his remarks to a supposed palatable texture. In this way, backing and filling, he frittered away anything of argument that he might have presented, convincing his audience, however, that his niggerism has as dark a hue as that of Garrison or Fred Douglass but that his timidity before the peculiar audience he addressed prevented its earnest advocacy with the power and ability he is known to possess. ... To attain power, by whatever means, was the burden of his song, and he pointed to the complexion of the Bloomington ticket as evidence of the desire of the factions to attain it by any process.
| August 9, 1856 |
Lincoln then took the stand and made a three hours speech. It was prosy and dull in the extreme---all about ``freedom,'' ``liberty'' and niggers.
| Speech at Edwardsville, Illinois, September 11, 1858 |
Then if Mr. Douglas did not invent this kind of Sovereignty, let us pursue the inquiry and find out what the invention really was. Was it the right of emigrants in Kansas and Nebraska to govern themselves and a gang of niggers too, if they wanted them? Clearly this was no invention of his, because Gen. Cass put forth the same doctrine in 1848, in his so-called Nicholson letter, six years before Douglas thought of such a thing. Gen. Cass could have taken out a patent for the idea, if he had chosen to do so, and have prevented his Illinois rival from reaping a particle of benefit from it. Then what was it, I ask again, that this ``Little Giant'' invented? It never occurred to Gen. Cass to call his discovery by the odd name of ``Popular Sovereignty.'' He had not the impudence to say that the right of people to govern niggers was the right of people to govern themselves. His notions of the fitness of things were not moulded to the brazen degree of calling the right to put a hundred niggers through under the lash in Nebraska, a "sacred right of self-government." And here, I submit to this intelligent audience and the whole world, was Judge Douglas' discovery, and the whole of it. He invented a name for Gen. Cass' old Nicholson letter dogma. He discovered that the right of the white man to breed and flog niggers in Nebraska was POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY!
Chicago Press and Tribune, September 11, 1858.
Way to go Abe!! Dropped the N-bomb four times in one paragraph in a public speech.
| Speech at Edwardsville, Illinois, September 11, 1858 |
Then, if Mr. Douglas did not invent this kind of sovereignty, let us pursue the inquiry and find out what the invention really was. Was it the right of emigrants in Kansas and Nebraska to govern themselves and a gang of niggers too, if they wanted them? Clearly this was no invention of his, because Gen. Cass put forth the same doctrine in 1848, in his so-called Nicholson letter---six whole years before Douglas thought of such a thing. Gen. Cass could have taken out a patent for the idea, if he had chosen to do so, and have prevented his Illinois rival from reaping a particle of benefit from it. Then what was it, I ask again, that this ``Little Giant'' invented? It never occurred to Gen. Cass to call his discovery by the odd name of ``Popular Sovereignty.'' He had not the impudence to say that the right of people to govern niggers was the right of people to govern themselves. His notions of the fitness of things were not moulded to the brazen degree of calling the right to put a hundred niggers through under the lash in Nebraska, a "sacred right of self-government." And here, I submit to this intelligent audience and the whole world, was Judge Douglas' discovery, and the whole of it. He invented a name for Gen. Cass' old Nicholson letter dogma. He discovered that the right of the white man to breed and flog niggers in Nebraska was POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY!---[Great applause and laughter.]
Alton Weekly Courier, September 16, 1858.
Way to go Abe!! Quite a stump speech you have going there! Different newspaper, still four n-bombs.
| Seventh and Last Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Alton, Illinois, October 15, 1858 |
We profess to have no taste for running and catching niggers---at least I profess no taste for that job at all. Why then do I yield support to a fugitive slave law? Because I do not understand that the Constitution, which guarantees that right, can be supported without it.
| Editor of the Central Transcript. Springfield, July 3, 1859 |
Dear Sir:
Your fling about men entangled with the "Matteson Robbery" as you express it; and men indicted for stealing niggers and mail-bags, I think is unjust and impolitic. Why manufacture slang to be used against us by our enemies? The world knows who are alluded to by the mention of stealing niggers and mail-bags; and as to the Canal script fraud, the charge of being entangled with it, would be as just, if made against you, as against any other Republican in the State.
| Speech at Council Bluffs, Iowa, August 13, 1859 |
He then, with many excuses and a lengthy explanation, as if conscious of the nauseous nature of that Black Republican nostrum, announced his intention to speak about the "eternal Negro," to use his own language, and entered into a lengthy and ingenious analysis of the Nigger question, impressing upon his hearers that it was the only question to be agitated until finally settled.
| Speech at Clinton, Illinois October 14, 1859 |
He then spoke of the evils and disasters attending the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, by which the barriers protecting freedom and free labor were broken down and the Territories transformed into asylums for slavery and niggers....
| Speech at Hartford, Connecticut, March 5, 1860 |
[Daily Courant Version]
They say that between the nigger and the crocodile they go for the nigger. The proportion, therefore, is, that as the crocodile to the nigger so is the nigger to the white man.
Lincoln said he was in favor of the new territories "being in such a condition that white men may find a home."
Lincoln, Alton, Illinois, 10/15/1862
"His democracy was a White mans democracy. It did not contain Negroes." Oscar Sherwin
Lincoln's dream did not contain Indians or even Mexicans who he referred to as "mongrels."
Lincoln, CW 3:234-5
"Resolved, That the elective franchise should be kept pure from contamination by the admission of colored votes."
That got Lincoln's vote, January 5, 1836.
"in our greedy chase to make profit of the Negro, let us beware, lest we 'cancel and tear to pieces' even the white man's charter of freedom"
Lincoln, CW 2:276
Lincoln wanted the territories to be "the happy home of teeming millions of free, white prosperous people, and no slave among them"
Lincoln, 1854, CW 2:249
The territories "should be kept open for the homes of free white people"
Lincoln, 1856, CW 2:363
"We want them [the territories] for the homes of free white people."
Lincoln, CW 3:311
If slavery was allowed to spread to the territories, he said "Negro equality will be abundant, as every White laborer will have occasion to regret when he is elbowed from his plow or his anvil by slave niggers"
Lincoln, CW 3:78
"Is it not rather our duty [as White men] to make labor more respectable by preventing all black competition, especially in the territories?"
Lincoln, CW 3:79
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 3. Fourth joint debate September 18, 1858. Lincoln, as reported in the Press & Tribune. Douglas, as reported in the Chicago Times.While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great laughter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]---that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
At least eight times, he said publicly that he was in favor of White supremacy.
At least twenty-one times, he said publicly that he was opposed to equal rights for Blacks.
He said it at Ottawa:
I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. (CW 3:16)
He said it at Galesburg:
I have all the while maintained that inasmuch as there is a physical inequality between the white and black, that the blacks must remain inferior.... (Holzer 1993,254)
He said it in Ohio. He said it in Wisconsin. He said it in Indiana. He said it everywhere:
We can not, then, make them equals. (CW 2:256)
Why couldn't "we" make "them" equals?
There was, Lincoln said, a strong feeling in White America against Black equality, and "MY OWN FEELINGS," he said, capitalizing the words, "WILL NOT ADMIT OF THIS..." (CW 3:79).
As for the insight of the Claremont Institute into African-American history and affairs, precisely which African-American spokesman for the Claremont Institute is considered most influential?
Check out the following pantsload from Harry V. Jaffa at page 21 of A New Birth of Freedom.
However, in one of the earliest announcements of his political views, in the Sangamo Journal on June 13, 1836, Lincoln had said, "I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms, (by no means excluding females)." Certainly the largest class of excluded "equals" were women, and Lincoln at the age of twenty-seven is on record as favoring female suffrage.
Of course, dear Harry was full of crap, and it is doubtful that he did not know he was full of crap and deliberately distorting what Lincoln said, which was little more than male chauvinist pig locker room humor. Let us see how Lerone Bennett, Jr., editor of Ebony, treated the exact same material in Forced Into Glory at page 193.
The fight to ban Black voters was apparently a major Lincoln obsession, one he returned to repeatedly. Six months after he voted to keep the suffrage pure and White, he opened his campaign for reelection to the legislature with a letter in favor of a lily-White suffrage:New Salem, June 13, 1836To the Editor of the Journal:
In your paper of last Saturday, I see a communication over the signature of "Many voters," in which the candidates who are announced in the Journal, are called upon to "show their hands." Agreed. Here's mine.
I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burthens. Consequently I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms, (by no means exclusing females). (CW 1:48, italics added)
This was a backwards step, even for Whites, since the franchise was open then to all White males, whether they paid taxes or not. As for White females, Lincoln, as Donald and others have said, was probably making a joke since he and all his constituents knew that White women didn't pay taxes or bear arms.
Clearly, one version is accurate and the other is a steaming pantsload. If it is not the truth, it is not history. What Harry V. Jaffa wrote was not history, it was fantasy.
You have your answer. The Confederate Cabal cannot comment on anything without making is an attack on Abraham Lincoln.
At the TIME, The "Dred Scott" decision was correct, because slavery was protected under the Constitution.
Why would Bush would use that as a reference?
Not applicable.
(Ducking for the "Brigade" attack)
WEll....if the shoe fits, and regarding Lincoln, it usually does........
Yes. As opposed to all those southern leaders promoting equality and racial tolerance and all.
But Dred Scott had nothing to do with the legality of slavery.
Some people thought Bush was far afield mentioning this. I think it was brilliant, because Dred Scott RESONATES with African-Americans. Bush essentially put KERRY on the side of racism. It's subtle, but the undertone of this message will get out to some.
I have read tht educated blacks despise the Dred Scott decision.
That's frightening
Yep. Sometimes, I think it has more import to them than Plessey-Ferguson.
So in other words he misrepresented plain historical fact in order to score a cheap political point. And in so doing he completely undermined his supposed opposition to judicial activism. He was essentially saying that the court should have outlawed slavery because slavery is wrong, not because anything in the Constitution forbade it at the time.
How many former members of the KKK serve as Republican Senators? None that I know of, but Democrat Bob Byrd was. The Republicans also passed the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s. The Democrats view black Americans as political props rather than human beings. The biggest insult of all was that Bill Clinton was black. Apparently being a liar and adulterer are considered black qualities by the DNC.
I admittedly differ from many others around here in that I tend toward Lysander Spooner's interpretation of the constitution, which holds slavery to be illegal on a Jeffersonian premise.
And they don't like anything coming out of the Claremont Institute.
That is true, and I consider Claremont to be a bastion of dishonest academic frauds who practice idolatry toward Saint Abe in a very literal sense. Chalk this article up to them doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Everyone should despise the Dred Scott decision. It was judicial activism at it's worst, although not for the reasons that President Bush gave.
It would have been more brilliant if President Bush had acted like he actually knew what the case was about.
As (unfortunately) is usual, Bush's remarks about Dred Scott were somewhat incoherent, but I think they were basically accurate.
Dred Scott essentially stated that Congress could impose NO limitations on slavery, as such limitations would violate the proprety rights of slaveholders.
It also stated that blacks could never be citizens of the US. This was historically inaccurate, as blacks in a number of states had been full citizens almost since Independence. This part of the decision scared quite a few people, since previously any citizen of a state had been assumed to be a citizen of the US.
The most important impact of Dred Scott was in the North, where a great many people (including Lincoln) were convinced there was a "vast pro-slavery conspiracy" to eventually have the Supremes overrule state laws against slavery. This was probably not really true, but the outrage against the ruling played an enormous role in turning former moderate northerners (like Lincoln) more firmly against slavery.
Thus the comparison to Roe is quite valid, if only because of its effectiveness at dividing the country and brining a previously somewhat peripheral issue to the fore. It also is valid because of the arrogance of a Court majority just bypassing the political process because it isn't moving the direction they want. Almost all northerners disagreed with the decision, and so did a lot of moderates southerners, if only because of it's inflammatory effects.
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